Vegetable Oil in Diesels

[Saveman]

Mixing vegetable oil with your diesel for fuel?? It works for the slightly older diesel engines and at 30p per litre cheaper than diesel it looks a more and more attractive prospect.....

Of course by law you're only allowed to use 2500ltrs per year......

Any orgers use vegetable oil in their diesel cars?

[MadPict]

From what I understand it should work for most diesel engined vehicles. I don't think the newer ones are precluded.

I have been tempted to get one of these - http://greenfuels.co.uk/product/fuelpod-2.aspx

Wonder if my local chippy needs a way to dispose of his used oil...

[TBH]

Mixing vegetable oil with your diesel for fuel?? It works for the slightly older diesel engines and at 30p per litre cheaper than diesel it looks a more and more attractive prospect.....

Of course by law you're only allowed to use 2500ltrs per year......

Any orgers use vegetable oil in their diesel cars?

You have to pay duty on the veg oil if you are using it as fuel.

[flash]

If you produce less than 2500 litres per annum for personal use you will not need to register with HMRC and will not be liable to pay duty. (As a guide, 2,500 litres is enough to run two average family cars for a year.)
If you produce above that limit, you have to register with Customs and Excise and pay 30.35 pence to them for each litre of fuel you produce. (This is a 20 pence derogation from the fossil diesel duty). Guidance on eligibility and conditions can be found within HMRC Notice 179E - latest revision March 2008). We strongly recommend that you keep appropriate records and do not attempt to bypass this regulation in any way. Further details and specific advice regarding your situation can be found on the HMRC website < www.hmrc.gov.uk/briefs/index.htm > or via their helpline - 0845 010 9000.

[Valerie Campbell]

Thanks to Saveman, I've done a bit of research on this and it looks like an excellent idea, although I would always check with a local mechanic first. I think I would go for a 50/50 ratio though, and I'd still be saving money. However I have noticed the price of veggie oil has gone up considerably lately still it's cheaper than a litre of diesel!!

[flash]

be aware that if you are using a straight 50 50 mix, you run the risk of gummy deposits possibly causing damage to your engine. Keep a close eye on fuel filters. There is bound to be additives for diesel fuel systems similar to the petrol carb cleaners, to help burn off any deposits.

[Geo]

Be very careful if you have a newer car with a common rail diesel engine. Dumping veetable oil straight into the fuel tank is liable to cause problems. If your diesel is common rail don't do it without researching conversion kits.

http://www.vegoilmotoring.com/eng/wh...-diesel-engine
http://www.smartveg.com/faqs/smartve...ail-engine.php

Also Lucas pumps are less reliable with vegetable oil than Bosch. If you have a Lucas pump then preheating is recommended for the oil.

finally have you seen the price of vegetable oil these days? Six month ago it was 50ppl now it's over a £1 in some places. I think the shops have cottoned on.

[Geo]

You have to pay duty on the veg oil if you are using it as fuel.

Not since July I think it was last year. You can use up to 2500l duty free. They ask that you keep basic records of use but you will not need to produce them unless you go over the 2500l a year limit.

[George Brims]

From what I understand it should work for most diesel engined vehicles. I don't think the newer ones are precluded.

I have been tempted to get one of these - http://greenfuels.co.uk/product/fuelpod-2.aspx

Wonder if my local chippy needs a way to dispose of his used oil...

Over here in the US there has been a huge increase in theft of waste oil from restaurants since the price of diesel went up.

[emb123]

In the interests of not being a complete plagiarist I won't copy this entire article which is very interesting, informative as to the technical stuff and also very funny.

I've only copied about half of the article the whole article can be found here:

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/featur...h/biofuel.html

FRY AND DRIVE
Monday January 20, 2003
The Guardian
G2 section, pp. 2-3.
Original here


When staff at a Welsh supermarket first noticed dramatic increases in the sale of cooking oil, they thought the locals were doing a lot of frying. They weren't. They were filling up their cars with it - not surprising, as it's only 42p a litre. Trouble is, if you don't pay duty, it's illegal. Jim White reports

According to Mike Hebson, the manager of Asda's store in Swansea, south Wales, there was no reason to be suspicious that sales of the company's cheapest bottles of cooking oil were running 20% higher than the previous year, way above any other store in Britain. "We just thought it was one of those things," says Hebson.
Why should he and his staff have been remotely questioning, he suggests, if men in overalls and lived-in denims had started buying Smart Price vegetable oil in batches of six, eight and 12 litres at a time. When one customer came in and filled a trolley to the brim with plastic containers of the thin, urine-coloured liquid, the checkout operator barely gave him a second glance.
"Naturally, we assumed they were buying on price," says Hebson, an Asda man to the soles of his own-brand brogues. There was another reason that his staff were unlikely to see anything untoward in bulk-buying cheap vegetable oil. "We just thought they were doing a lot of frying," he says. "You have to remember, healthy eating has not hit Swansea in a big way."

It wasn't until the Department of Transport began a series of trial tests in the city last March that staff realised something odd had been going on. In an attempt to take diesel vehicles belching out illegal emissions off the road, department inspectors introduced experimental spot checks on roads in Bristol, Westminster, Glasgow, Middlesbrough, Canterbury and Swansea. It was in the latter that they found something surprising: a car with a fuel tank half full of cooking oil.
"The funny thing was," says Hebson, "the driver told them he had been getting it from Asda Swansea for four or five months, because it was the cheapest around. When we read the report in the local paper we began to put two and two together."

The enterprising motorist was, so the reports suggested, running his diesel-engine motor on a mix of Asda cooking oil and standard fuel. At 42p a litre, the supermarket chain's oil is considerably cheaper than the 73p a litre that even a discounted retailer charges for diesel. The astonishing thing was it worked. Without any need to modify the engine, the motorist could run his car on the mix with no discernible difference in its performance.

What's more, instead of diesel fumes, the engine gave off a rather pleasing odour - like frying time at the local chippy.

And if Asda's sales figures were anything to go by, unless he was running a fleet of buses across south Wales, the driver who had been pulled over by the emissions inspectors wasn't the only one. Wind your windows down in a Swansea traffic jam last spring, the rumour went, and the chances were you would think someone was having a barbecue. The local joke was that the whiff was particularly prevalent around the DVLC, the government's national car-licensing department, which is headquartered in the city. It was a nice irony, because, as the cooking-oil driver discovered when he was fined £500 and had his car impounded, the government is not amused by cheap alternative fuel. Diesel is relatively pricey because a large chunk of the cost is made up by duty. Cooking oil carries no such tax. But if it is put to use in a petrol tank, duty is due.

[Rheghead]

Over here in the US there has been a huge increase in theft of waste oil from restaurants since the price of diesel went up.

Over in the UK, restaurants are charged a certain amount to dispose of their chip pan oil, so usually they are quite happy to give the stuff away, negating the need for a crime.

[MadPict]

Wonder if the wife will stretch to a Fuelpod 2 for my birthday?.....

[Dog-eared]

I've run on 50/50 with some white spirit with no problems but put a load of veggie in and before I could top up with diesel we had a very frosty morning and I popped an "O" ring on my fuel injector due to the thicker veggie oil. The unit had to be taken off, along with the exhaust manifold, and cost £114 in labour.
I also noticed that the price per litre for big bottles was going up faster than the small ones, so LIDL was catching on !
Do your research first !!

[George Brims]

Over in the UK, restaurants are charged a certain amount to dispose of their chip pan oil, so usually they are quite happy to give the stuff away, negating the need for a crime.

Most bigger places in the US, or those that are part of chains, sell to recyclers. For instance McDonalds sell the chicken fat they haven't managed to deposit in their customers' arteries to some other bit of the "agricultural-industrial complex" (to paraphrase President Ike). However I think smaller places still have to pay to get rid of it. It is when the batches out the back of larger places are left unguarded overnight that they disappear. I must ask our local donut shop what they do with theirs.

[Geo]

I think there's plenty of mileage left in this thread...Boom Boom!

Just back from Lidls. 1 litre of oil is now £1.19. I don't think it's worth risking for the small saving.

[dessie]

there is a gentleman close to wick who makes it and sells it... and from what i hear all you have to do is change the fuel filter before you start...it is recommended....

[lynne duncan]

we were having this discussion a while back and someone said that they used veg oil but they had a card for bookers in inverness and got the oil at trade price, think i'll just use the car less and exercise more, which will benefit my purse and tummy better!